Out of the grayness Nicky whimpered, his face frightened: “Gosh Almighty, boss, I thought the rat put you down. I been workin’ on you for ten minutes. You—”
Drake with an immense effort pushed the upper part of his body erect, resting it against the bed. Nicky’s voice droned meaninglessly around him. His throat seemed swollen, dry, and packed with harsh cotton burning slowly. When he tried to speak he made a croaking sound; it sounded so funny to him that he laughed. He laughed, putting his head back against the metal bar.
Nicky said: “Now, boss — now, boss,” looking wildly around the room. He got up and ran across the floor that billowed under Drake’s eyes in slow steady waves. Drake wondered, interestedly, how he did it. Pete Mayo was lying before him, on his face. He was curious, too, about that.
Nicky came back, his eyes distracted, and slopped water from a glass down on him. Drake reached greedily for the tumbler, got it, and sloshed the liquid down the fiery tube of his throat. It hurt going down, but when he had swallowed it he felt better, more normal. He managed to get to his feet.
“—!” sighed Nicky, over a long breath. “Boss, I’ll tell you—”
Drake croaked again, pointed his finger at Pete Mayo and raised inquiring brows.
Nicky scowled, spoke slowly, with hatred. “The lousy little rat. I saw him come in, but a dizzy operator gave me the wrong number. When I got, 906 I recognized his voice say hello. I made out I had the wrong place, asked for foe. Then I came up here to wait in the hall. I didn’t know what to do. But after a while I got nervous — the door wasn’t locked but I couldn’t hear anything — so I come in. Mayo didn’t hear me; he had the rope around your neck and I saw his hands pullin’ it.” Nicky reached out with his foot and pushed it into Pete Mayo’s side. “So there was a chair here and I smacked him with it. Which is all, boss.”
Drake looked and saw a chair splintered by the body. He rasped: “Dead?”
Nicky said: “No,” regretfully. “But he won’t feel like doin’ much for the rest of the night.”
Drake nodded, steadying himself with one hand on the footrail of the bed. His mind felt light and uncontrolled; he had a constant desire to burst out laughing. There seemed to be something inexpressibly funny in the back of his head but he could not think what it was.
Nicky’s arm helped him to the door and out into the hall. The dimmer light there was grateful to his pain streaked eyes, though the corridor itself seemed narrow and infinitely long. He staggered a little, pushed away Nicky’s arm, but managed to reach Miss Carrigan’s desk steadily enough.
Her face gaped in surprise when she saw him. “Why, Mr. Drake,” she said. Her bright little nose sniffed suspiciously, seemed to wiggle; she shook her head sternly, in disapproval.
Drake couldn’t help laughing at her face, her expression. The sounds bubbled from him and exploded against the walls in a rush he couldn’t stop. Miss Carrigan looked outraged, old maidish, quite forty. The illogical thought came to him that she must be thinking of the duplicity of man.
He laughed, roared. The spasm drained him of breath and he leaned over gasping. Before him the metal doors of the elevator shaft drew noiselessly apart, and Neil Grant and the girl got off. Drake began, after an instant, to roar again with laughter. Neil Grant smiled, not understanding, but brightly.
“What ho!” he said. “A large evening for the boys.”
Drake boomed: “I’m drunk. I’m drunk as hell! I want to blow things up, Grant. High’s sky, higher!” He threw one hand clumsily to the ceiling, let it plop down on the blond man’s shoulder. He shook him playfully, his eyes cunning, his mouth pleading. “And I want one more drink before I blow. One more. How about it, friend?”
Nicky looked angry. “Come on,” he growled. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” He shook his head disgustedly.
Drake leered: “He thinks I’m drunk. Me!” The great laughter roared forth, reverberated. “Me, Grant!” He spoke quietly, confidentially in the hoarse whisper of an intoxicated man. “I’ve got a tip — a good tip. On the Derby, Grant. For you. You’re my friend.” He half closed one eye, put his head to the side, moved a finger before his face. “But you’ve got to give me a drink, friend, to get it. Just one. I’m dying for it.”
Neil Grant took his arm. The brown eyes were bright, gay. His glance shot to the girl warningly as she said: “For crying out loud—” and stopped when she caught his look.
They left Miss Carrigan’s outraged presence, with the girl annoyed, Nicky sour looking and uncertain.
The blond man’s room was nine eleven, two doors down across the corridor from Pete Mayo’s. Inside, Drake sprawled in a chair, breathing heavily, as if asleep. He didn’t move until Neil Grant brought him a glass of Scotch.
Then he got up, lunging to one side, staggered to the bathroom door behind the bed. He muttered, heavy eyed: “All right, friend. You’ll excuse — the lady—” He hiccoughed, bowed to the girl, wavered with drunken dignity past her. He lurched inside, hiccoughed again, closed the door.
There he crossed steadily enough to the basin. In the mirror his face stared back at him, darkly congested, the eyes bleary. He grinned without mirth. Not hard to convince anybody he was blotto, looking that way. There was a livid mark apparent on his neck when he bent forward, and he pulled the linen collar of his shirt higher to conceal it.
From his inside pocket he took a pen and a small leather notebook. On one of the unlined pages in back he wrote rapidly: “Go downstairs phone Detective Proctor at Police Headquarters. Get him over as soon as you can and wait for him. Thee* bring him right up. Don’t mind an) thing I say before Grant.”
He put back the pen, folded the pa per in a small ball and concealed it in his palm, then ran the water thirty seconds before going out. In the bedroom he saw the girl had gone, and noticed from the tail of his eye Nicky looking sourly at him from the bed.
Neil Grant was handsome, gracious. “About that tip?” he smiled.
“Oh, no,” Drake said, cunningly. “Not that way, friend. Firsht — the drink.” He picked up the glass of Scotch, drained it, continued: “A cigarette — must have smoke.” He lurched over to Nicky’s scowl, said: “Whass matter, kid? No fun? Come on, get hot.” Nicky gave him a pack of cigarettes and he took one out, lit it. Under the cardboard box, as he returned it, he slid the piece of paper, pressing it into Nicky’s palm.
Neil Grant said, his words eager, fast: “But the tip, Drake? You’re not going to forget that?”
“Thirty to one,” Drake said. “That’s what shell pay. Got that? Now—” he turned to Nicky. “You get Brannigan, bring him up here, right away.” He roared suddenly: “Damn you, get going.”
Nicky looked sullen, puzzled. He held the pack of cigarettes in his hand, hesitated a moment, then at Drake’s clumsy pass went across to the door and out. Drake dropped on the bed, turned over, began to snore.
Ten minutes later Nicky and Proctor came in. Drake lifted himself dully, rubbed his eyes, boomed out: “Brannigan, pal! I’m ringing a friend in, got it? All my friends in. Good thing — can’t miss.”
Proctor said: “Ya-yuh,” cheerfully, looking at Neil Grant.
The blond man appeared uncertain. He said:
“But you haven’t told me the horse’s name.”
Drake said: “All right. Brannigan’s my commissioner — places money. Spreads it around — Chicago, St. Looey, New York. Wires it like that, just before race time. Then it’s put down. Then no chance to beat down odds, unnerstand? Still high, thirty to one. But the money mustn’t be bet at track. That knocks down odds, beats hell out of ’em. Unnerstand?” He made a sweeping motion with his hand. “Okey, friend. You give Brannigan five thousand dollars, now. Got it?”